Awakenings--which inspired the major motion picture--is the remarkable story of a group of patients who contracted sleeping-sickness during the great epidemic just after World War I. Frozen for decades in a trance-like state, these men and women were given up as hopeless until 1969, when Dr.... show more

Awakenings--which inspired the major motion picture--is the remarkable story of a group of patients who contracted sleeping-sickness during the great epidemic just after World War I. Frozen for decades in a trance-like state, these men and women were given up as hopeless until 1969, when Dr. Oliver Sacks gave them the then-new drug L-DOPA, which had an astonishing, explosive, "awakening" effect. Dr. Sacks recounts the moving case histories of his patients, their lives, and the extraordinary transformations which went with their reintroduction to a changed world.

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Too bad there's no bittersweet emoji. (And ironic that a website that dedicates itself to the discussion of books would want us to distill our ideas about a thing made of many words to a little yellow circle. Aren't we all here to avoid this?) Anyway. This is Oliver Sacks love letter to the worl...

Lock In is an excellent title for John Scalzi’s new novel because it warns you that, as soon as you begin reading it, you can forget about accomplishing anything else. You will just have to finish it to get free. If you’ve read Oliver Sacks’ Awakenings, you will recognize the germ of the idea for Lo...

I have read about half of this book to date. I picked it up not realising it was non-fiction, but it is a fascinating and sad account of people who had spent decades in trance-like states the results of a mystery illness, Encephalitis lethargica. That there have been outbreaks of this possibly viral...

Can't recall if I finished this, but had to add it for the humour value. A Hollywood potrayal was quite uplifting, but it's hilarious to read how the original patients behaved every time they gained mobility in short spurts. You need to read the book to realize I'm not ridiculing their condition in ...

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